engagement photos

Jon & I went out with Paul Pennington (www.paulpennington.com) and shot our engagement photos this past weekend. Now, don’t get too excited, I don’t have them yet (we just went on Saturday!) but I wanted to build anticipation… they are going to be awesome!

We were thinking that we’d want to go to Tinker falls where Jon proposed, but it’s pretty much only got 1 type of background – trees. So I was thinking of really cool places where we could take photos. I thought (of course) of one of my favorite places in Syracuse! Thorndon park. Now I know, it’s where people get murdered, robbed and all like that, but that’s only at night! during the day, it’s beautiful. We took pics in the rose garden, the landscaped area, the ampitheater (where there was all these people playing the African drums!), the playground (I got to swing, hang upside down) it was way fun. Then we headed over to the kissing bench. I figured – why not? It’s an SU landmark. So we kissed on the kissing bench. There was lots of kissing. I think Jon liked it. :)

So be on the lookout for some awesome engagement photos. Paul was so awesome to work with too! We brought him there – he hadn’t been before – and the wheels in his photographer brain started to spin in circles and his eyes lit up. It was awesome! Paul was great – he wanted to go wherever we wanted, but he had lots of suggestions & we just walked around the park looking for awesome spots. I’m sure it helped that it was one of the most beautiful days in Central New York!

I my opinion, it is a really good idea to have an engagement photo session with your photographer before the wedding. There’s a couple of reasons for this:
1. You get more comfortable with them, get to know one another (this is especially helpful if you don’t know the photographer at all – we knew Paul, but it was good to ‘hang out’ with him for a while anyway)
2. You get the “warm fuzzies” about the quality and timbre of their work
3. It’s fun!!! And good bonding time for the two of you. Plus, you can practice your smiles and angles for the BIG DAY!
4. Guest book and/or signing mat. I just love this idea – this way, when you look thru the guest book, there’s more than just lined paper and people’s signatures. It’s more memorable! I’m warming up to the idea of a signing mat. Mostly because I think it’d look pretty on the wall.